Larissa Garcia powers through a few bars of Duke Ellington’s “Hit Me With a Hot Note.” Will Corkery delivers a searing passage from “The Laramie Project” and performs part of the song “96,000” from the barrio-set musical “In the Heights.” Michael Garcia sings the ’40s standard “Tangerine” before nailing a bittersweet monologue about a man leaving his son to head off to war.

As they show off their chops to a small team from San Diego Repertory Theatre, it’s clear these teenagers are not only capable but seriously theater-savvy.

Now shift the scene to summer: All three of those students have been selected for the Rep’s next production. And the play they’re about to try on for size is one that’s become a cultural landmark (and will test every bit of talent they’ve got): “Zoot Suit,” going up at the Rep as the third joint production of the downtown theater and SCPA.

William Corkery (left) dances with Larissa Garcia, while Kevin Burroughs (behind) dances with Daechelle Hernandez, at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. The students were rehearsing for San Diego Rep's "Zoot Suit," a joint production with SCPA. — K.C. Alfred

“It’s definitely the most influential piece of Latino theater in American theater history,” says Rep artistic director Sam Woodhouse. “It’s the piece that literally brought Latino theater to the commercial American theater. It’s the only Chicano theater piece ever to go to Broadway.

“And for us, it’s a California story, and a masterwork of (playwright) Luis Valdez, who was hugely influential in my career and also was an artist-in-residence at the Rep for five or six years.”

The last time the Rep delved into what Woodhouse terms the “muscle and bravura” of “Zoot Suit” was in 1997, two decades after the play-with-music had its initial hit run in Los Angeles. That was also around the time many of the SCPA students in the upcoming production, which begins previews this week, were coming into the world.

Mileena Rogers, another of the dozen or so students cast in the show, admits she wasn’t completely familiar with Valdez’s history-based story of Chicano pride and cultural upheaval in World War II-era Los Angeles.

But her parents know the movie version, “and they’re really excited for me,” she says. “I think it’s just a big part of the culture, and it’s one of the most popular shows in Latino culture. (So) it’s fun to be a part of that.”

Lasting legacy

“Zoot Suit” remains a big part of Valdez’s life as well. The playwright, who just turned 72, directed the Spanish-language world premiere of the work in Mexico City two years ago — the biggest “Zoot Suit” staging since its short run on Broadway in 1981.

There also are more productions of the play going up around the country these days than he can keep up with.

“It stays pretty busy,” observes Valdez, who’s renowned for founding the landmark El Teatro Campesino (“Farmworkers Theater”) as part of Cesar Chavez’s labor movement in 1965. “It’s popular because it involves people of high school or college age, so it’s a natural. And it’s a history lesson at the same time.

“I’ve been impressed with the response of kids that were born since 1990 — their reaction to the material, to the appeal of the period, and certainly to the opportunity dress up. To put on zoot suits and to dance in this play makes it a very appealing experience for young people.”

Those suits — long, luxuriant coats, baggy and peg-legged pants, broad, flashy hats — became what now can seem an unlikely flash point of ethnic and racial friction in the America of the 1940s.

“Zoot Suit” was inspired by a real-life incident of the time: the Sleepy Lagoon case, in which a group of young Chicanos were falsely accused of murder. (In that way, the play has some kinship with the musical “The Scottsboro Boys,” recently staged at the Old Globe.)

At the time, the term “Chicano,” once derogatory, was being reappropriated as a point of ethnic pride, and zoot suits had become a popular statement of Chicano identity and solidarity.

The Sleepy Lagoon case, though, became an excuse for discrimination against and harassment of Latinos, partly in the name of patriotism (because the clothes seemed to flout wartime rationing of fabric).

There were widespread clashes between white U.S. servicemen and Latino youths — in San Diego as well as in L.A. and other cities — leading to what are known as the Zoot Suit Riots.

Valdez’s play looks at those events through the prism of fiction, following the saga of murder defendant Henry Reyna (who’s arrested just as he’s about to enter the Navy) and the mysterious appearances of El Pachuco — a kind of patron saint of zoot-suiters.

Youthful spirit

Besides focusing on the life-and-death drama, “Zoot Suit” also spotlights the vibrancy of the period’s youth culture. Although it’s considered a play with music rather than a true musical, the show includes extensive dance sequences and music by Lalo Guerrero and Daniel Valdez (the playwright’s brother).

Javier Velasco, a longtime Rep artist and star local choreographer (as well as artistic director of San Diego Ballet), returns for “Zoot Suit.” The director is Kirsten Brandt, onetime leader of San Diego’s maverick Sledgehammer Theatre and now a busy theater artist in Northern California as well as a faculty member at UC Santa Cruz.

Besides the 21 students, her cast includes Raul Cardona (who was in the ’97 Rep staging) as El Pachuco; Lakin Valdez (a son of the playwright) as Henry; Culture Clash co-founder and Rep resident artist Herbert Siguenza as the Press; Maya Malán-González as Della Barrios; plus such San Diego and regional talents as Moxie Theatre co-founder Jo Anne Glover, Old Globe veteran James Newcomb, TV and stage star Mark Pinter, Ion Theatre regulars and Rep returnees John Padilla and Catalina Maynard and Rep first-timer John Nutten.

As with “Hairspray” and “The Who’s Tommy,” the two previous productions in the Rep/SCPA partnership, the show also will include student musicians. It’s all part of a larger program, called “Xchange Xperience” and spearheaded by SCPA principal Mitzi Lizàrraga and artistic director Richard Trujillo,that involves workshops, mentoring and other collaborations between the two institutions.

Valdez sounds a little wistful when he notes that it has now been “as long since the play originated as the play was from the original events. It’s been 70 years (altogether).”

In that time, he adds, the image and import of the Pachuco in particular have taken center stage in Chicano identity.

“Kids who hadn’t been born yet when the play opened have tapped into that,” he says. “I also think it’s real important with respect to the urban experience. It’s a touchstone for kids to be able to participate in the urban experience with a sense of history now.”